Cannot follow Hyperlink to Office document

[MitchSC]

Background:

First I noticed that that When clicking on certain URL hyperlinks in Office (Word) 2003, now getting the following error message: “Unable to open <URL>. Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server.”
Happens with only some URL hyperlinks, that always worked before.

I believe this just started happening since I installed the latest Windows Update on 6/19/17. (???)

I fixed the problem above with a registry modification from Microsoft Easy fix 50655.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/218153/error-message-when-clicking-hyperlink-in-office-cannot-locate-the-inte
Added this subkey: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Internet\
Registry Value: ForceShellExecute. Set Value data to 1.

But the fix above Caused my current problem as warned in the Easy Fix above: "A hyperlink may not go to a Microsoft Word document after you use this workaround."
Microsoft recommends Article ID: 280680: "Cannot follow Hyperlink to Office document"
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/280680

I tried MS fix #280680, but it didn't work.

I use both of these features daily, and would really like to have them operational again, but am lost at this point.

Sorry for the long post. I hope my description of the problem makes sense (LOL).

Thank you...

 

[MitchSC]

This is the warning (error) message I get in Word 2003 when I click a hyperlink to another Word doc.

View attachment Warning Message.doc